Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. US black) spirituality, magic, thus power and influence; also attrib.

1927		Ida Cox [song title] Mojo Hand Blues.
1937		Robert Johnson ‘My Little Queen of Spades’ 🎵 Everybody say she got a mojo, now she’s been using that stuff / Mmmm, everybody say she got a mojo, cause she’s been using that stuff.
1958		Hughes & Bontemps Book of Negro Folklore 375: You may tip out sweet poppa, while tippin’ is grand, / But yo’ tippin’ will be over when Momma gits her Mojo hand.
1960		C. Himes Big Gold Dream 66: She said it was just mojos and potions and charms [...] African and Haitian stuff.
1973		D. Goines Street Players 142: You must have your mojo workin’, girl.
1980		(con. 1950s) M. Thelwell Harder They Come 62: This is the cool fool with the live jive with mah mojo workin’ and the music perkin’.
1999		Observer Screen 20 June 6: He time-travels back to 1969 to recapture his mojo, aka his libido.
2000		Guardian 12 Jan. 23: This is one man who knows how to keep his mojo working.
2003		G. Tate Midnight Lightning 112: The musicians were working their ‘Mojo’, I didn’t want that sound to ever stop.
2007		C. Goffard Snitch Jacket 213: They refused to allow the hippies back home to sap their mojo.
2011		J.J. Connolly Viva La Madness 278: Te had got his mojo back. Didn’t take long.
2012		T. Robinson ‘Last Call’ in Dirty Words [ebook] Josh’s nerves were interfering with my mojo.
2021		‘Aidan Truhen’ Seven Demons 17: [A] real fucking pretentious bit of face fur like you would have if you were real into your villain mojo.

2. (US drugs) any narcotic drug, esp. morphine.

1935		A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks 77/1: Mojo, any of the poisonous habit forming narcotics (dope).
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 156: mojo Morphine.
1953		Anslinger & Tompkins Traffic In Narcotics 312: mojo. Drugs, especially morphine, heroin, or cocaine.
1969		R.R. Lingeman Drugs from A to Z (1970) 179: mojo [...] heroin, cocaine, or morphine.
1972		D. Dalby ‘African element in American English’, in Kochman Rappin’ and Stylin’ Out 182–3: mojo — [...] mainly used today in sense of ‘something working in one’s favor,’ also ‘narcotics’.
2001		ONDCP Street Terms 15: Mojo — Cocaine; heroin.
2013		T. Dorsey Riptide Ultra-Glide 22: Coke [...] Charlie, Chippy, Belushi, Foo-Foo, Merck, mojo, movie star [etc].

3. (US black) a kind of dance.

1970

B. Jackson Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 60: She let her pussy do the mojo, the pop-grow, the turkey, and the grind, / left Dolomite’s ass nine strokes behind.

4. (US prison) synthetic marijuana.

2016

Mother Jones July/Aug. 🌐 The inmate says he was caught recently with two ounces of ‘mojo,’ or synthetic marijuana.